SOC 330P Exam 1

social psychology

systematic study of nature and causes of human social behavior

theory

organizes and explains a set of observed phenomenon, describes what/why of human behavior, and allows for predictions about future events to be made

middle-range theory

identify conditions that produce a specific social behavior, ex. frustration-aggression hypothesis

theoretical perspective

• broader in scope than middle-range theories

• offer general explanations for social behaviors

• 3 traditions: symbolic interactionism, group processes, and social structure + personality

symbolic interactionism

1. we act toward things, people , and situations on the basis of their meanings

2. meanings are not inherent, rather they are negotiated in interaction with others

3. meanings can be modified and changed through interaction

   • meanings need to be agreed upon for interaction to proceed smoothly

situated identity

• if there is consensus of this, interaction will proceed smoothly

• who is one in relation to the others in the situation

• allows for all parties involved to understand meanings for plans of action

• our identities are not self-evident as others perceive us through the lens of their own schemas and stereotypes

self

• social object that is negotiated and developed in interaction as we imagine how others see us and how we should see ourselves

• having a self allows us to engage in reflexive actions

• requires social distinctiveness and social connection

role taking

• imagine ourselves from the other person’s viewpoint to make cooperative action possible and to help us require self-meanings

• ex. teen lies to his mother that he did his homework even though he played video-games instead

identity theory

• individuals strive to maintain self-respect in their own eyes by engaging in role-taking

• seeing ourselves from the viewpoint of others and working to meet their standards so we feel good about ourselves

significant others

persons whose opinions we care for the most, typically those who control important rewards or who occupy central positions in groups

reflexive self

• ability to act toward oneself

• the individual can view themselves as both the source and the object of reflexive behavior

• active: “I,” source that initiates reflexive behavior

• passive: “me,” object toward whom reflexive behavior is directed

criticisms of symbolic interactionism

• individuals do not all have the same personality, meaning not everyone is personally concerned with maintaining self-respect

• neglects importance of conflict (way too much emphasis on cooperation

group processes

• main frameworks: social exchange and status

• research on this is normally experimental

social exchange (group process framework)

• social relationships are based on the exchanges of goods and services

• want to maximize rewards and minimize costs

• choices are a result of conditioning (we exchange with people that provide positive reinforcement)

• equity: exists when participants feel that the rewards they receive are proportional to the costs they bear

status theory (group process framework)

• levels of esteem and perceived competence dictate the way we interact with others

• unconscious tendency to judge people in terms of status

limitations of group process

research is biased toward North America

social structure and personality

one’s particular position in a social structure will influence their personality (beliefs, values, attitudes, goals, etc.)

research on social class and parenting styles

• middle and upper class parents prefer self direction style of parenting

• lower class parents value conformity

personality

extends beyond values and beliefs to behavior and both physical and mental health

cognitive theory

• mental activities of the individual are important determinants of social behavior

• thinking moderates relationship between external stimuli and behavior

• how we categorize and access social information

• generally focused on unconscious processes

cognitive processes

mental activities

Gestalt psychology

• understand meaning of stimuli only by viewing it in the context of the entire system

• ex. chess master assesses location of chess piece and strategies of the entire board

cognitive structure

any form of organization among concepts and beliefs

schema

a well organized structure of cognitions about a specific social entity

dual-process theory

• process information automatically and deliberately

• automatic: occurs quickly without notice, relies on heuristics, allowing rapid determination of what to expect from people we meet and how to treat them

• deliberate: needed when a more accurate judgement compared to unconscious processing

heuristics

• mental shortcut to selecting schemas that help us make effective choices and judgements when uncertainty is present

• types: availability, representativeness, and anchoring & adjustment

social identity theory

individuals’ identification with societal structures guides cognitive processes through self-categorization and prototypes

self-categorization

the defining of the self as a member of a social category

prototype

• the way we categorize ourselves and others into groups

• we decide if we are a member of a group because we fit a schema of typical group members

• represents typical member of a group

evolutionary theory

social behavior stems from our genes, linking psychological, sociological and biological factors

differential susceptibility theory

• genes make some more susceptible to our environmental conditions than others because of alleles

• alleles: variants of genes

• ex. exposure to racial discrimination led to later behavioral problems among young men

criticisms of evolutionary theory

cannot observe the actual evolution of social behavior

Rosenhan study

• demonstrates that diagnosing mental health issues can be tedious

• eight fake patients gained entry into a mental hospital by claiming to hear voices

• once admitted, they ceased symptoms when admitted yet staff still believed they were mentally ill

social perception

processes by which we form impressions of other people’s traits and personalities

attribution

• refers to the process an observer uses to infer the causes of another’s behavior

• types: dispositional and situational

• Jones & David (1965): we try to assign causes of behavior to dispositions initially and then if intent does not correspond with an existing disposition, we then have to assume that situational factors are at play

confirmation bias

focusing on information relevant to current belief and ignoring contradictory information

study about the reliability of social perception and attribution

• demonstrated how social perception and attributions can be very unreliable

• subjects in a study were more likely to shoot a black subject holding a harmless object and hold back from shooting an armed white subject

categorization

our tendency to perceive stimuli as apart of larger groups

person schema

describe personalities of people, either specific individuals or types

self-schemas

• organize conception of our own characteristics

• we behave in a way that matches

• the way we view ourselves is modified by feedback we receive from others

• incorporate more distinctive features that make us stand out from others

group schemas

stereotypes regarding members of a group or social category

role schemas

indicate which attributes and behaviors are typical of persons occupying a particular role in a group

event schemas

regards important, recurring social events, specifies activities that make up the event

gender schemas

• characteristics and behaviors we expect from men vs. women

• ex. women are respected less when they hook up frequently than they do men who hook as often

research on memory and schema

• we use schema to fill in gaps of our memory

• more likely to remember facts consistent with their schemas

• more likely to recall schema that is contradictory and consistent better than schema that is irrelevant

• concrete facts are remembered over abstract facts (tells lies vs. dishonest)

complexity-extremity effect

• the more members of a group we interact with, the less uniform we see group members, result is that our schema is more complex

• when schema is less complex we enact more extreme judgement

• ex. white students judging law school applications for white and black students judged black students more extremely in either a positive or negative way

shortcomings of schemas

1. over-accepting of info that fits a schema (ex. confirmation bias)

2. adding inaccurate elements just because they fit into a schema

3. forced misapplication of a schema

implicit personality theory

• a person schema that makes assumptions about how personality traits are correlated with one another

• allows us to make inferences beyond available information

• depicted by mental map, traits that are closer together are related

• warmth and competence dimensions

• ex. students described as gifted are assumed to be emotionally deficient

halo effect

general/overall liking for a person leads us to make assumption that all other traits are positive, produces bias

warmth dimension

will someone harm or help us

competence dimension

intelligence, skill, and creativity

stereotype

• a set of characteristics attributed to all members of some specified group or social category

• ex. “Ms.” seen as more achieving, masculine, and less likable than “Mrs.”

Bem Sex Role Inventory

measures sex-role stereotyping and self perceptions

stereotype threat

• occurs when a member of a group suspects they will be at risk of confirming a negative stereotype of the group they belong to

• fear of confirming the stereotype will interfere with performance

• ex. black students performed poorly on a test compared to white students when told it was a test for intellectual ability but, when they were not told this, black and white students did equally well

• ex. blacks in the diagnostic condition were more likely to fill in race related words, self-doubt words, have less willingness to report race and fewer reports of enjoying stereotypical activities

origins of stereotypes

1. direct experiences with members of a group

2. biased distribution of members in distinct roles

3. natural, efficient way of storing information

errors of stereotypes

1. assumption that all group members are alike

2. all members differ from other groups

3. misinterpreting a situation or person’s value

4. ignoring contradictory facts

difference between use of stereotypes between classes

higher status people tend to use stereotypes more than people of lower status because they have more people competing for their attention and need to make decisions quickly

sub-typing

• a process where perceivers create subcategories of stereotyped groups to serve as exceptions to the rule to avoid threatening the overarching stereotype

• way of explaining away contradictory information and preserving our own stereotypes

impression formation

process of organizing diverse information into a unified impression of the other person

trait centrality

• traits that have a greater overall impact on the impression we form of that person

• ex. warm v. cold professor

primacy effect

• observers forming an impression of a person give more weight to information received early in a sequence than to information received later

• subsequent information will be stored in a way that makes it consistent with our initial impression (ex. roommate established to be clean so her dirty socks on the floor are viewed as forgetfulness rather than sloppiness)

recency effect

• recent information exerts stringer influence on our impression than earlier information

• ex. two different groups watching the same courtroom arguments came to different verdicts depending on who presented last

mood and impression formation

• good moods favor early information

• primacy effect is eliminated when in a bad mood

self-fulfilling prophecies

• when our behavior toward people based on the impressions we form of them cause these people to react in ways that confirm our original impressions

• Snyder & Swann: gave participants a fake photo of either an attractive or unattractive person, attractiveness activates a positive schema, measured how male treated female over the phone and how the female behaved

• findings: when a man is told that the woman is unattractive, he then believes that the woman is socially incompetent, the man treats the woman subtly worse, leading her to respond to this uncomfortableness and fulfill this expectation

availability heuristic

• how fresh in our mind a particular schema is, more available if we use it more often

• ex. we have more experience categorizing words by first letter, so we assume more words start with the letter “r” than have “r” as the third letter

representativeness heuristic

• consider a few characteristics we know about someone or something and determine whether they belong to a member of a particular category

• ex. assuming people who listen to country music are from the South and are very religious

anchoring and adjustment heuristic

• use a starting point and modifying it to make a judgement about something we do not know

• the type of anchor we use can affect outcome of the situation

• most common anchor is ourselves

• ex. I tip 10% at a restaurant and my friend tips 25%, I judge her to be incredibly generous

dispositional attribution

the process of attributing behavior to the internal states of the person who performed it

situational attribution

behavior is attributed to factors in that person’s environment

subtractive rule

• when making attributions, the observer subtracts the perceived impact of situational forces from the personal disposition

• used to weaken the dispositional and strengthen the situational

commonality

unique effects of actions can help identify specific dispositions of a person

social desirability

• people engage in socially acceptable behaviors, which show people are normal and reveal nothing about their dispositions

• Ex. Thanking host when leaving a party is normal, revealing nothing about a person

normative expectations

consider how normal a behavior is, actions that conform are uninformative while violations of norms lead to inference about dispositional attributions

fundamental attribution error

• overestimate the importance of dispositional factors and to underestimate situational influences

• Castro Study: students were told what side to take in Castro debate or got to choose what side they wanted to choose, yet people still believed that those who were assigned to sides were thought to actually agree with their assigned side

• Quiz Bowl Study: people were randomly assigned to be either a questioner or a contestant, questioner asks contestant questions that they obviously do not know the answers to, makes the questioner look smarter even though it is just about role assignments

who favors dispositional attributions? situational attributions

individualistic cultures favor dispositions while collectivist cultures favor situational attributions

focus of attention bias

• overestimate the causal impact of whomever or whatever we are focusing our attention on at a given time

• perceiving stimuli that attract our attention to be the most influential

• providing an explanation for fundamental attribution error, as we are socialized to focus on people during interactions not situations

actor-observer difference

• observers attribute actor’s behavior to internal characteristics

• actors attribute their own behavior to the context of the situation

• effect is amplified if one does not know the actor very well, more likely to assume dispositional attributions

• ex. videotape experiment allowed for people to see both point of views, thus changing people’s perceptions of the situation

belief perseverance

• initial assumption as correct despite evidence to the contradictory

• will interpret actions to be in line with stereotype as dispositional

• things that do not align are written off as situational

self-serving bias

people take credit for acts that yield rewards and deflect blame for bad outcomes, allowing one to protect their self-esteem

luck

unstable and external

task difficulty

stable and external

ability

stable and internal

effort

unstable and internal

attribution of common and extreme performances

• extreme performances are attributed to internal causes

• common ones are attributed to external causes

attribution of a performance to stable or unstable causes

depends on how consistent a performer is

attributions and emotional outcomes

ex. failing a test because you think you lack ability will result in despair, while failing a test because of lack of effort will result in shame and the desire to improve

internal locus of control

• individuals believe that they have control over many of their life outcomes

• benefits: lower levels of academic stress, eat healthier, and drive safer

external locus of control

• individuals feel powerless over their life outcomes

• shortcomings: explains declining voting participation in young people, learned helplessness, associated with poor school performance, increased depression, and decreased self-control

learned helplessness

• negative effect of external locus of control, individuals focus on past failures and conclude they are incapable of achieving success

• growth mindset needs to be used to combat this

• ex. Two groups are either given solvable or unsolvable problems. After working on those, the two groups were given the same solvable problems to solve. Students who had worked on unsolvable problems completed less problems than the other group.

mature sense of self

• recognizing our thoughts and feelings are our own and internal

• children confuse reality and imagination

• children have to learn to distinguish speech to self from speech to others

looking-glass self

a person imagines how they appear to someone, how they are judged, and experiences pride or shame as a result

Play and the Game

• two stages of social experience leading to the emergence of the self in children

• play: young children imitate the activities of people around them, organizing different activities into meaningful roles, not yet understood that a person has many roles at once and must relate to people in other roles (ex. pretending to be a mailman or firefighter)

• game: comes after play, children enter in organized activities such as complex games of school which require children to engage in role-taking to understand the game

generalized other

• a conception of the attitudes and expectations held in common by the members of the organized groups with whom they interact

• understanding that one’s actions are part of interdependent group activity

digital self

• self constructed through online interaction

• inwardly oriented: use CMC to communicate inner and personal thoughts

• a narrative: self-presentation that is expected to be coherent and consistent

• retractable: ability to delete self

• multiplied: one can have several, diverse selves

• online self-disclosure tends to be superficial and limited

clarity

• important to the self

• the degree to which the elements of it are clearly articulated and consistent

• the more time we spend online, the less clear their self would be

self-evaluation

• the views of ourselves that we perceive from others are either positive or negative

• our self-evaluations will affect our behavior and the way we express our role identities

• ex. a musician who thinks they are competent will pursue opportunities to perform in public more persistently

identities

• meanings attached to the self by one’s self and others, thinking of various plans of action that we expect to carry out

• categories that specify the positions we hold in society

role identity

constructed by observing our own behavior and the responses of others to us as we enact these roles

social identity

a definition of the self in terms of the defining characteristics of a social group

accentuation effect

• when membership in a group becomes important for self-definition

• perceptions of relevant out-groups are also important

• negative stereotypes of those from different groups and in-group favoritism are reinforced in conversations between group members